Don't Underestimate Cleaning Your Garage

Following Jesus is hard work. It is a mysterious combination of being and doing; grace and responsibility; stillness and action; surrender and victory. The range of this life is included in the seasons of Lent, beginning Ash Wednesday, March 5; Holy Week, April 13-19, and Easter, April 20.

Following Jesus leads us into uncomfortable circumstances and relationships where we learn how God's grace sustains us. We learn how to hold on and let go of commitments and plans for the sake of knowing and loving God.

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense" (Ralph Waldo Emerson in Ready for Anything, David Allen, 24)

It’s not that I have already reached this goal or have already been perfected, but I pursue it, so that I may grab hold of it because Christ grabbed hold of me for just this purpose. Brothers and sisters, I myself don’t think I've reached it, but I do this one thing: I forget about the things behind me and reach out for the things ahead of me. The goal I pursue is the prize of God’s upward call in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:12-14; Common English Bible)

I continue to be intrigued and inspired by the work of David Allen and the Getting Things Done system. He has brought together the ways our brain works and provided practices for releasing the life-energy within us.

"One of the most effective ways to spark a dynamic vision is to clean your garage. Don't get me wrong. Writing a great strategic plan and creating a clean, well-ordered garage are very different activities. One requires a high-level focus and a willingness to see beyond the conditioning and details of current reality. The other requires an often brutal hand-to-hand combat with those details. Yet there is a strange and wondrous relationship between the two...when people want to get control of their work and life by 'setting priorities'...(m)y choice is always to go for cleaning up the garage of their work, their life, and their head. Then the priorities, the vision, and the plan emerge - grounded, with solid roots" (Ready for Anything, David Allen, 24-25).

The season of Lent is the opportunity to clean our spiritual garages; roll up our sleeves and pay attention to what needs to stay and what needs to leave in our hearts. Lent means attending to the hard work of faith but we don't always recognize it that way. "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work" (Thomas Edison in Ready for Anything, David Allen, 25).

Holy Week and Easter are the opportunities to hear and experience the solid grounding of our faith in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ; to know and feel the love of God as the hardest work of overcoming evil, forgiving sins, and restoring right relationships.

I hope we are able to work hard to leave behind the burdens of the past and reach out for the possibilities of the future as we experience God's upward call in Christ Jesus. And I pray that in doing so we may find that our hard work depends entirely on the hardest work God does in Jesus Christ.